now that senator john kerry has been officially nominated for secretary of state we'll look at his evolving stance on whistle blowers and wiki leaks if he was for it before he was against it what does that imply if he becomes america's top diplomat. and a contentious bill to ban u.s. parents from adopting russian children is making its way to vladimir putin's desk how does this bill compare to regulations in place in the usa and why are so many american parents why do they pick russian kids in the first place. and while many now feel its users are watching their favorite shows perhaps they should be asking

themselves who's watching that we'll tell you about the latest u.s. bill and what it means for your online privacy in just a moment. it's wednesday december twenty sixth two thousand and twelve it's four pm here in washington d.c. i'm liz wahl in you're watching our t.v. . oh looks like massachusetts democrat john kerry will succeed us secretary of state hillary clinton the former presidential candidate got a reputation as a flip flopper during his presidential run constantly changing his political stances on how we can add something else to the list of so-called flip flops and this one could be particularly troublesome for someone poised to be america's top diplomat kerry was for wiki leaks before he was against it as reported in the washington monthly this was kerry's statement after the afghan war logs were

released he said quote however a legally these documents came to light they raise serious questions about the reality of america's policy toward pakistan and afghanistan those policies are at a critical stage and these documents may very well underscore the stakes and make the calibration needed to get the policy right more urgent but later the washington post reports that kerry condemned wiki leaks calling it a lawful and potentially endangering u.s. citizens he's also gone on the record on n.b.c. speaking out against the document leaks yes there is real damage social security numbers of individuals have been made public. technology about roadside bombs has been made public the relationship of the president let's say of yemen who was involved with us and helping to fight the domestic terror in yemen has been exposed for parts of his relationship with the united states that could be very damaging to

our efforts there there are many similar kinds of efforts through. but here's another interesting twist involves john kiriakou a former cia analyst who was the first official to confirm the us use of the technique of waterboarding on al qaeda prisoners kiriakou was later charged with leaking classified information to journalists but between two thousand and nine and two thousand and eleven he worked under senator kerry a senior investigator for the senate relations foreign relations committee senator kerry is the chair of that committee so what does this all say about the man likely to be the next secretary of state and case kerry sails through the questioning wiki leaks ironically enough gives a nice picture of what kind of diplomat kerry has been in the senate foreign policy magazine shows that wiki leaks cables paints a picture of kerry as a negotiator interested in climate change and engaging with the arab world where he has found both success and failure if he is approved as secretary of state it's

likely he and wiki leaks will meet again. on now to rush the russian parliament today they passed a ban a bill that bans u.s. citizens from adopting russian children the controversial legislation now goes to president vladimir putin for his signature the bill could affect hundreds of u.s. families hoping to adopt russian children russia being the one of the most sought after countries for american parents that want to adopt abroad here's a look at the russian adoption statistics over the span of twelve years as you can see it fluctuates year to year the peak in two thousand and four was nearly six thousand russian children adopted the adoption ban if approved would be seen as a blow to relations between the u.s. and russia here's what a u.s. state department spokesman said about the bill quote the united states is concerned by measures in the bill passed in the russian duma today that if it becomes law would halt intercountry adoption between the united states and russia and would

restrict the a bill. clytie a russian civil society organizations to work with american partners the backers of the russian bill say there is been a trend of american adoptive parents being abusive one of the most recent is a boy by the name of nathaniel craver who was seven years old when he died in two thousand and nine of brain injuries these are as the boys' parents in the nets and michael craver of pennsylvania they were sentenced to sixteen months to four years for beating their adopted russian son to death they insisted the boy repeatedly heard him self and died when he fell and hit his head on a wood stove they originally charged with murder but ultimately sentenced to involuntary manslaughter all this enraged the russian government which set up the punishment did not fit the crime for more on this adoption ban and what it means for parents and children really post joins us now she's with the foundation against child trafficking and the author of the book you see there romania for export only

the untold story of there are many an orphan really nice thanks so much for coming on the show i know that you've done a lot of work and research about orphans i want to get your reaction first to this adoption bill this bad going to. which the so there's been this big number being discussed in the cloning. and russia are you going through there's something about. the science. down dramatically and the russian is. good because.

that's the first thing for the american family. getting more and more difficult to go from a grow. to the moment. over one hundred thousand children the available for what option that we declared for the civil trials are conservative so like in other countries i think it would be

good to pursue got their own children before they can ask for other countries to help them ok i child welfare advocates say that there is a about eighty thousand children now identified as in need of supervision and russia and critics are saying that this will ultimately hurt orphans and russia. this is something that is up to me growth not also the case of romania at the time knowledge we set out at first of all all countries have children in care you know that's also important to from body that the state that section services are there to look after children temporarily or for a little time are in need for her assistance of ok. what i consider it because we've got to remain part of this is my say rush to the future the big prize for young children is very high because there's just no proper child protection system. and allowing in the country don't you know the saying time is

very very difficult because if you store everything is being a high price on the head of one child it also means the. orphanage to strengthen them very often become dependent of foreign money of the money results in specificity faces and that's waste very difficult to run across a child protection service with only the best interest of the child and love in the interest of that amount of children ok so latin sounds like you're advocating we know that i am a lot of russian officials have been advocating finding these children homes within russia. do you think that that is a feasible solution. i think that just like in any other country where i'm speaking of the united states or european countries it is fairly easy to find a home or who are very young to a room it is more difficult to find homes for older children but it might also not

. always be in the best interest of all the children are also doing well in small time recycled or in boarding school. i think the issue will be just like any other country ok abnett or russia as it is a very popular place for americans to adopt seeking to adopt a child might think it is such such a popular a popular place why is a athens and such demand i guess what do you think is behind that well in the end of the eighty's or beginning ninety's when the eastern europe opened up there were two countries that were rather easy part to it was russia and romania and the fact that my why girls are so enthusiastic with their system for the first time that caucasian or white children became a very little and there were obviously very popular because many other friends are looking for children who who look like themselves with the same feature so romania

down with a few dozen spies and was thanks to them the pressure this is now taking place. this improved a little now and so russia is about the only country that we sent a wife children who the u.s. and other countries so you're saying that racism is a big factor in this race is a secular although i must say there's also a reason the minutes you'll get about this from a few oka races are there are also other factors coming in whether whether it's all whether there's some kind of other feel good stories that we did with race that was the effect. interesting i also patients are now in place to protect adopted children. well the regulations in places who have been un convention the russians the child's assessment recipe i buy all come from the world the united states somalia and sudan. and that's the most the most important regulation i mean that the that goes for the national it is the

issue and so this was russians to go lie ok. for him and how would you say that those regulations the regulations within the united states compared to other countries. well other countries apply sort of the un convention but. getting the technical allow you united states only rectified a program can be much more important safely because you don't assume then the un has been from the so i would say that. russia we've talked about the vikings and conventions to have read your rights and to take these kinds of measures because you come here the solution not an obligation of us to mention the rights of the trial is the measure of last resort is only if i think there's no other man will raise a child including raising the south. entrance saying i want to bring up one more

point we don't have too much more time but in two thousand and eleven there were more than one hundred thousand children in the united states waiting to be adopted at this is according to the department of health and human services so could this cut the ban and russia encourage more adoptions within the united states because there's also children in need of a home right here right here at home. right right and of course this possibility of getting young children away from abroad or children would come with people who play with less race to test yeah because there's opponents are not living in countries but it could use a lot of the heat in the u.s. so yes in the event of a whisper russia is micro we get many of the. prospective of the irons in the u.s. will turn towards their own children in the united states however obesity that children are goes to in the interest of the child and not in the interest of people

who are wasting so we must be careful not to create the books here look for people who are. right at really appreciate you coming on the show there really that was really post staff representing a foundation against child trafficking. and while president obama and most other government officials were celebrating the holidays with their family on monday they also authorized a pair of drone strikes in yemen the first attack was located in the beta province in central yemen which left at least two suspected al-qaeda militants dead later that night a second attack in the german province left five people dead it's unclear at this point if those casualties were members of al qaeda and while the targeted areas are considered hotspots as main operating operating locations for al qaeda in the arabian peninsula these were the first attacks on the region in well over a month some suggesting that the timing could have been deliberate and while the

u.s. has been keeping their bull's eye over locations like yemen somalia and pakistan it turns out that the u.s. has had a record number of drone strikes in afghanistan american drone strikes reached a record of four hundred forty seven attacks in two thousand and twelve that the hundred about one hundred fifty more strikes than the u.s. launched just a year earlier so it seems like the death of the mastermind of nine eleven mastermind osama bin laden in two thousand and eleven didn't mean less drone strikes. and now to a story explaining what your legislators have been up to right before christmas eve the u.s. congress carved out some time to look over the video privacy protection act why so that it could loosen the privacy protections afforded in the bill it appears this was a legislative priority for the company netflix now netflix can have its users display the movies they're watching on their facebook pages it's

a nice holiday gift for netflix and facebook but what about its consumers this of course comes as congress is in negotiations to prevent the country from falling over the fiscal cliff another interesting aspect congress cut a provision that would have forced law enforcement to get a search warrant to look at e-mails for more we're joined by human chew need gum in our l.a. studio hello there you so i always want to ask you does this bill only let facebook users share what they've been watching on netflix or are there other provisions how far does this go. well liz i have to say that if you look back on the video privacy protection act which actually was passed twenty five years ago and it was passed specifically because there was concern that the media or others might get ahold of maybe porn you're watching or other salacious videos when you went into your local blockbuster and now if you look at it times have really changed and people are

saying what do you mean i can't share what i'm watching on my photo stream on our on my sharing stream on on facebook the reality is you can share if you can use this bill to display what your customers are watching whether you're netflix your hulu whether you're doing it through facebook or some other major social media site so at the end of the day it is the marketing side that's going to get a great benefit for this which is why it was a great legislative agenda item for netflix all right sell a good deal there for the marketing side obviously netflix who is going to benefit from this but what about the consumers what about the average citizen and how will it impact them well interestingly the reason we should we should say for your viewers around the world netflix and facebook have already been able to do this and this was a law that was in the us preventing them from do it from doing it from a consumer perspective however you have to upton and not just opt in the companies

have to provide you clear and conspicuous which is the language they're using clear and conspicuous method of saying to you hey do you want to share what you were watching all the time in this particular video that you just watched and make it very interactive from a consumer perspective and i think the real story here is not so much as is there a change in privacy going on but the fact that this bill requires an opt in versus what traditionally bills have been doing in congress that are coming out which is opt out so there's a definite shift that we should as as. consumers and those businesses be paying attention to so you're saying now consumers have even less of a say and less of a choice and you know what they're viewing and their data how that is made public and how that is shared actually is it's the opposite because what consumers have to say is i want to do this and unless i say i want to do it you cannot touch what

movie i watch last night or over the last few months and until i do that you can do it and even if i do it i can change my mind anytime i want and every two years you have to remind me in case i've forgotten that i have said it to share do i want to change it do i want to go back to keeping myself private again and it's really putting power in the hands of the consumer and return what the companies get out of it is the ability to use that information to share with others to use it for sure for marketing purposes so there's a definite balance that was struck here and at the end of the day it actually looks like a good balance because young consumers specially are saying what do you mean i can i can share what books i read on my photos or in my stream i can share what music i'm listening to but i can't share what movie i watch that's kind of strange such a young consumers versus folks like me who completely understand and were aware what was happening in one thousand nine hundred nineteen eighty eight twenty five

years ago when judge bork was the victim of this type of issue long long time ago right right interesting i want to talk about another aspect of this one part of the bill that was cut right before passage would strength and of privacy protections for citizens by forcing law enforcement to get a warrant in order to search e-mail just like you would need a warrant to search somebody's personal property at home that part of it was cut why is that. well i think the key word here is there's a lot of political maneuvering going on as you know with the fiscal cliff and everything else inside the beltway right now and you have senator leahy who is saying look i've got the video privacy protection act pass congressman good good good law for thank you for working with me on that now when the new year is coming i want this electronic communications privacy law changed so it requires a warrant for everything and i'm doing something for you you do something for me that i think is what's going on behind the scenes from a consumer perspective and

a law enforcement perspective there's something else here and that is a is a balance between the consumer's right to privacy and the government's right to investigate a crime because ultimately that is what it will impact and which is probably why this bill has slowed down a little bit right now even though the senate judiciary committee actually had bipartisan support when it did pass it out of committee unanimously a couple months ago. interesting you had mentioned earlier about the possible concern i guess altering what viewers end up watching and our very own tom hartman and sam sachs they wrote an article on this very issue it's called netflix blacks out their revolution and what it contends that if what you watch on netflix becomes public information as you know advertised on facebook that a person will be less likely to watch some mercy of films are kind of be more

cautious about about what they watch what do what do you think about that argument . i think if this was a bill that said it's an opt out bill in other words it's going to be turned on by default and then you have to go in there and change it most people don't even know about these opt out settings and then settings so rick the fact that you have to physically say to the company that you're working with him in this case netflix i want you to share is i think the saving grace of this bill and the and that will avoid the the issue that tom is raising which ultimately do you do you really worry about what you're going to watch if you're willing to share it and if you're not willing to share it and you want to keep what you're watching private then you have that option and it's it's putting your face that's why it's clear and conspicuous so there's a lot of there's a lot of what i would call. attention being paid to the balance of technology and how it exists the ability to move things very quickly across social media and

the consumers desire to say look this is kind of creepy to me i don't want that to happen what are going to do but the the answer was well if you want to do it you can if you don't you don't have to and unless you say yes physically say yes it won't happen ok and i guess that kind of serves as some comfort to people for a peaceful that wants you know what they're watching on netflix or remain a secret i want to talk to you about the tight timing of this bill of course we have these fiscal cliff negotiations going on there's also some other pieces of legislation for example the electronic communications privacy act that's kind of still on the backburner. of course congress is tackling this tackled this piece of legislation and christmas eve what do you make of that of that timing i guess their priorities. well i think what happens in congress is sometimes what you want to do is at least get the easy ones out of the way and then come back and deal with the

harder ones after there's no question the fiscal cliff is not an easy one and i think we're all seeing what's going on in that the electronic communications privacy act because law enforcement has said you are affecting my right to investigate i think what congress is saying is you know you're raising a public safety concern we do care about our freedom and our citizens and we also care about privacy let's figure out how to strike the right balance rather than rushing to judgment getting something through the door when no one is paying attention and at the end of the day i think the more debate on this particular bill there is it will come out with a better result one thing i do have to say liz is this in the law enforcement perspective if you actually step back when you do create a search warrant requirement for any kind of e-mail versus what it was before where someone or some or search warrants some or subpoenas there was can.

and i'll keep my communications related to it longer so when law enforcement comes in door knocking with a search warrant into that cloud service where i'm putting it they're going to get a bigger goldmine than they would otherwise there's so there is a saving grace in this particular bill as well that's good to know really appreciate you coming on the show came on sheila that was that thankfully mancini's founder of ask as people will. when it comes to government transparency it may be more difficult to come by that's because.

creating an era of open government has not exactly been met earlier this week newman new analysis from bloomberg showed that up to twenty five government agencies have begun to outsource freedom of information act requests better known as for is the name of efficiency private companies have been contracted to take the ease off of the foyer process landing some pretty big paydays in the process the report notes that over two hundred fifty companies have been awarded such contracts among them a com technology corp its least nine point one seven million the like consulting has gotten a call one million for its services and what are they in charge you may ask along with administrative services they get to redact and recommend information that gets

released on all color coding to bloomberg at least twenty six point five million has been spent on for a contract in two thousand and twelve alone but let's backtrack a bit here how does this all work well in fact that in one nine hundred sixty six the freedom of information act is a federal law that establishes the right to obtain information from government agencies so who can file a request. much anyone that includes u.s. citizens private organizations and foreign nationals exemptions of course can apply to certain parts of the government but on the whole these requests serve as an important tool to keep those in charge accountable it's also pretty simple to file just go online fill out your name your address and your ego question seven ask you for what information you want access to and from where in order to keep track of the documents you ask for question eight ask you what key phrases in particular you are interested in order to narrow down your search results sort of like

a library catalogue then a couple of questions about money in payment for the surgeon there you go you have successfully filed a formal request with the u.s. government but while filing those requests might be as easy as one two three getting an answer to your questions is the tricky part during twenty eleven over six hundred forty four thousand to four across were filed according to the government and only sixty three percent of those requests were approved so you have a one in six shots of getting what you're looking for all the more interesting to find out that those in charge of the task have decided to outsource transparency so on one hand you have the government attempting to make filing these requests more streamlined but the red tape of filing for requests through private companies perhaps is a good example that actions may be speaking louder than words from washington i'm a journal said o r t. that's going to wrap it up for this hour will be right back here a five. wealthy

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